PASCAGOULA, Mississippi -- A year after another Pascagoula prostitute narrowly escaped a violent strangling, Lelia Johnson scratched, clawed and ran topless into heavy shipyard traffic to get away from Samuel Little, her would-be murderer.

Johnson, now 55 and living in Moss Point, was in her early 20s when she fought off Little's brutal attack inside a car in November 1981.

"He got his big hands around my neck, but I'm a fighter and I was scratching him in the eyeballs, kicking and fighting, fighting, fighting," she said. "He was evil. You could tell he hated women and he liked having control."

Johnson was just one of Little's many victims, but she was one of very few survivors.

Little is suspected of killing 40 or more people across the country in about a dozen states, authorities have said.

When Johnson escaped the man's station wagon in 1981, she ran through some woods and onto U.S. 90 -- dodging vehicles -- and finally fell at the feet of a man who helped her.

Johnson never reported her attack "because I didn't think anybody would care or believe me," she said Thursday morning.

Johnson and another severely injured Pascagoula prostitute, who asked not to be named, were in California last week the testify against Little.

Each identified the now 74-year-old wheelchair-bound man as their aggressor and said he was extremely violent and intended to kill them.

"He beat me severely, and I guess the only reason he didn't kill me is because a friend of mine came and knocked on my door," a now 60-year-old victim said.

She was attacked in July 1980 and was near death after Little entered her Carver Village home, knocked her unconscious and pulled a scarf tightly around her neck.

"He put me in a bathtub and was submerging my head in and out of water," the Pascagoula woman said. "I think he was trying to bring me to before he took me to my bedroom to choke me to death. It probably wouldn't have been any fun for him to choke me while I was expressionless."

She said she was unconscious for 95 percent of the assault, and she woke up at the hospital, where authorities had been called to take a statement.

Her case was not investigated, however, "until a white girl turned up dead" two years later, she said.

Versiga has worked the LaPree cold case and also testified in Little's California trial.

He called Little a "professional shoplifter" who left a trail of bodies as he traveled across the country.

"He was a thief by day and a murderer by night," Versiga said. "He would steal, steal, steal all day long and then flash his money to get these girls in his car and then strangle them."

According to a 1982 memo in the Pascagoula case file, Little was suspected then of having killed as many as 40 people -- mostly prostitutes and drug addicts who wouldn't be reported missing for while -- across the country, he said.

"He preyed on the weak," Johnson said. "He preyed on people he could use and abuse and kill."

Little had a ferocious appetite for violence, and he's suspected of committing crimes in states including California, Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas, Georgia, Mississippi and Ohio.

"We were a small part of a much bigger case," Versiga said.

Beginning in his teens, Little has been arrested in connection with crimes in 24 states but has served less than 10 years in prison.

Those arrests were on assault, burglary, armed robbery, shoplifting and drug violations charges.

The serial killer first showed up in Pascagoula in 1977, Versiga said, and he was back in 1982 for the killing of Mindy LaPree.

Little was arrested in Pascagoula in connection to the LaPree murder, but authorities lacked sufficient evidence in the case and the district attorney at the time decided not to prosecute.

In the process, however, authorities learned that Little had been indicted on a similar charge related to the 1982 strangulation death of 26-year-old Patricia Ann Mount in Gainesville, Fla.

The Florida jury ultimately acquitted Little, however, because prosecutors had lost a key witness.

There's another cold case in Pascagoula that could also match Little's murder method, Versiga said.

"Our first skeletal remains were found in December 1977, about four months after Little left Pascagoula," he said. "The remains are still unidentified, but that might be another victim. I can only imagine."

Versiga said he was thrilled to deliver the good news of Little's conviction to local victims this week.

"He's been getting away with it for 50 years," Versiga said. "He had a little smirk on his face in court. I think it's him saying, 'it's about time somebody caught me.'"

Justice has been served for the families of the California victims, Johnson said, and she feels blessed to have helped prove a case against the man with "mean green eyes."

"I asked God all the time what my purpose was in life, but now I know he saved me so I could testify and get justice for those other ladies," she said. "I want him to sit in that wheelchair and rot every day and think about what he did to us."